Green Party parliamentary group leader irritates with saying: Nazi statement or normal phrase?
Green Party parliamentary group leader Katharina Dröge said "To each his own" on a talk show and apologized afterward. The phrase has a long history.
Wednesday evening, on the political talk show "Maischberger" on ARD: Katharina Dröge, the Green Party parliamentary group leader in the Bundestag, talks about politicians' videos, including those in which Markus Söder repeatedly eats sausage. Dröge says: "To each his own!" No reaction from the other participants or the audience can be discerned in the video of the TV show. Dröge's remark was the cynical and degrading inscription on a gate of the Nazi concentration camp Buchenwald.
The next day, Dröge wrote via the short message service X: "I made a mistake on Maischberger. In response to a question about funny or embarrassing social videos, I wanted to say: to each his own. Instead, I accidentally used the phrase 'to each his own.' That shouldn't have happened. I'm very sorry."
I made a mistake on Maischberger. In response to a question about funny or embarrassing social media videos, I wanted to say: to each their own.
Instead, I accidentally used the phrase "to each his own." That shouldn't have happened. I'm very sorry.
The politician apologized for a thoughtlessly uttered saying that, while coined in Roman times (“Suum Cuique,” roughly meaning “To each according to his merit”), was perverted by the Nazis. Nevertheless, unlike its spiritual cousin “Work sets you free” (at the gates of Auschwitz, Sachsenhausen, or Dachau, for example), “To each his own” has not disappeared from everyday language. Quite the opposite.
In an article, the Federal Agency for Civic Education lists a whole series of companies that have borrowed from the Nazi-contaminated slogan in their advertising slogans over the past years and decades: Nokia, Rewe, Microsoft, Burger King, Deutsche Telekom, and the Munich-based Merkur Bank are among those listed. In January 2009, a joint campaign by Esso and Tchibo, which advertised the coffee manufacturer's variety of coffees at around 700 gas stations with the slogan "To each his own," caused a stir.
Incidentally, the American Jewish Committee strongly protested Nokia. The telecommunications company covered the slogan used to advertise interchangeable cell phone cases with the title of a Shakespearean play: "Twelfth Night."
But is Katharina Dröge's apology all right? It certainly applies to her, because the assessment of such statements—including legal ones—depends entirely on the context.
This context was at issue, for example, when Thuringia's AfD leader, Björn Höcke, shouted "Everything for Germany"—a slogan of the SA—to the crowd at a campaign event in Merseburg in 2021. Höcke was convicted under Section 86a of the Criminal Code for "using symbols of unconstitutional and terrorist organizations." The historian Höcke countered, arguing that he had not known about the SA slogan. The verdicts are now final.
Critics saw Höcke's statement as a calculated ambiguity that sought to explore and expand the boundaries of what can be said. The term "dog-whistle politics" has become commonplace for this. This refers to the use of supposedly innocuous language that is understood differently depending on the audience.
“To each his own” is not always forbidden"To Each His Own" has also attracted court attention because of its clear context. In 1996, for example, there was a stir when the author Trutz Hardo published a novel titled "To Each His Own." In it, he justified the Holocaust by relativizing it through an esoteric belief in reincarnation and fantasizing about "karmic laws." The Neuwied District Court fined the author under Section 86a of the German Civil Code and prohibited the further distribution of the book. This meant that in Germany, it is forbidden to publicly adopt "To Each His Own" in the Nazi sense of the Buchenwald inscription and thus justify Nazi injustice.
Fifteen years later, an NPD man from Brandenburg made headlines when he revealed a tattoo depicting an Auschwitz watchtower and the Buchenwald logo "Jedem das Seine" (To Each His Own) at an Oranienburg swimming pool. Several courts ruled that this was punishable as approval of the mass murder of Jews in the Third Reich. The man received an eight-month prison sentence, also under Section 86a.
Henryk M. Broder's 1999 book "Jedem das Seine" (To Each His Own) remained unchallenged. In it, the author critically examines the historical legacy and analyzes the potential for abuse and the linguistic power of such slogans.
In the case of Viennese rapper Money-Boy, there are also no reports of legal consequences after he sang in his 2017 song "Monte Carlo" : "To each his own, but to me the most, please."
Karl Schnog's 1947 volume of poetry, "Jedem das Seine," includes a poem written in Buchenwald in 1943 in which he alludes to the torture and murder associated with the gate inscription. In the final verse, with his head held high, he turns the tables.
The first verse says: These gentlemen really have a sense of humor in these bitter times: "To each his own" is written sneeringly on the gate through which the prisoners pass. And in the last: You gentlemen who still grin today, believe me when I swear: one day the prisoner will get what he deserves.
And you? You'll get yours!
Berliner-zeitung
